[Montacroix Royal Family Series 02] - The Prince & the Showgirl (12 page)

"This is the
Salon Prive
," Burke informed the little group as they entered a room that was smaller, but even more exquisitely decorated than the main gallery.

When he smiled toward a lovely young blonde in her early twenties, clad in a long black beaded sheath that hugged every voluptuous curve, Sabrina felt that same unwelcome stab of jealousy she'd experienced when she'd seen the newspaper photo of the prince with Princess Caroline.

The woman glided across the vermilion-and-gold carpeting, somehow managing, despite the snugness of her gown, a perfect curtsy. "Your Highness," she greeted him in French-accented English. "I've arranged things for your guests, exactly as you've requested."

"
Bien
." His pleased smile was warm, admiring and intimate. Sabrina hated the woman without even knowing her. "I've arranged for each of you to have a credit with the bank."

The overly generous amount he stated drew surprised, pleased gasps from Dixie, Raven and Ariel. But not Sabrina. She had already decided that there was nothing Prince Burke could do that would surprise her. And although it was an unpalatable thought, Sabrina also suspected that such generosity was merely a way to buy Dixie's compliance for a dalliance with the eldest Darling daughter.

If that was his plan, it was definitely working. After turning the others over to the beautiful salon hostess he'd introduced as Dominique, he turned to Sabrina.

"Since you stated you don't gamble, I will be pleased to assist you in learning the game."

"Oh, isn't that nice," Dixie enthused. "Go along, Sabrina, darling. And have a good time." From her mother's overt delight, as well as the amused expression on both her sisters' faces, Sabrina realized that she was not going to receive any help from that quarter.

"All right," she grumbled as she allowed herself to be guided to the far side of the salon. "But I hope you won't be too annoyed when I lose every franc."

Burke stopped, gazed down at her for a heart stoppingly long time, then ran the back of his hand down her cheek. "I doubt that there is anything you could do to annoy me, Sabrina."

A silken net had drifted over them. They could have been the only two people in the room.

The mere touch of his hand against her skin had turned her mouth as arid as an Arabian desert. Sabrina had a sudden urge to lick her dry lips. An urge she resisted.

"You never know," she quipped on a shaky voice. "The night's still young."

He laughed at that, another one of those deep rich laughs that thankfully succeeded in breaking the seductive spell.

"Come along with me, Sabrina," he said, leading her toward the roulette wheel. "For some reason, tonight I am feeling very lucky."

6

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The female croupier dipped into a curtsy when Burke stopped at her wheel, then placed a pile of chips in front of Sabrina. After explaining that unlike the multicolored chips used in America, European roulette used only a single color, Burke invited her to choose a number.

"There are so many." Sabrina bit her lip. Although the plastic chips didn't seem like real money, for some reason the decision seemed vastly important. The other gamblers, along with the tuxedo-clad woman at the wheel, waited patiently for Sabrina's turn. Any guest of the royal family could take all night and there would not be so much as a whisper of complaint.

"Why don't you start by choosing a color," Burke suggested. "There are only two choices."

That was easy. Sabrina chose red, the color of Burke's dangerous-looking race car.

"A reckless woman," he chuckled when she placed a single chip on the expanse of green felt. "At least this way it should take all night for you to lose all these chips." The idea of spending the night with the lovely Sabrina was decidedly appealing, although Burke could think of far more pleasant ways to pass the time than playing roulette.

"Shh," she hissed as the wheel began to spin. "I'm trying to concentrate." She didn't take her eyes from the bouncing steel ball, which eventually fell into the slot occupied by the red number twelve.

"I won!" She clapped her hands as the banker returned her chip, along with another one. "Oh, I'm going to do it again!"

Ignoring his amused glance, she placed another single chip on black, the color of Burke's gleaming dark hair. She held her breath, every muscle in her body tense as the wheel spun round and round, the ball finally settling into the black number one.

They couldn't lose. It was as if some benevolent genie were perched on Sabrina's bare shoulder. As the night went on, Sabrina grew more lionhearted, moving on to numbers, playing hunches, winning every time. The pile of chips grew.

It was much, much later when she finally came down to earth. A brunette waitress, clad in a black Grecian-style gown, appeared at Burke's elbow, with two flutes of champagne.

"Dominique sent this wine to celebrate your guest's good fortune," she said with a smile.

"Thank you." Burke took the glasses with what Sabrina was beginning to recognize as his official royal smile. "Please tell Dominique that we appreciate the gesture."

He handed a glass to Sabrina. "I believe a toast is in order."

Wanting to share her good fortune, Sabrina was puzzled when she couldn't catch sight of her sisters or her mother.

"Where are the others?"

"They returned to the palace an hour ago."

"An hour ago?" Sabrina looked down at her watch, shocked to see that it was past midnight. "Why didn't they tell me they were leaving?"

"Your mother didn't want to chance breaking your lucky streak."

"Oh." That made sense, Sabrina admitted. Dixie had always been incredibly superstitious. "Well, we'd better be going as well. After all, you do have to race in just a few hours."

"Whatever you wish." His planned toast forgotten, Burke placed the untouched champagne on the tray of a passing waiter. "I'll cash in these chips."

While he went to the gilded barred window, Sabrina idly glanced around the room, surprised to recognize Burke's American chauffeur seated at the bar.

"Your chauffeur seems to be making the most of his time," she said when Burke returned.

"Drew never gambles while on duty," Burke said mildly. "Nor does he drink. Hold out your hand."

The chauffeur was immediately forgotten as Burke counted into her palm the stack of colorful bills vaguely reminiscent of Monopoly money.

"What in the world is all this?"

"Your winnings."

She stared down at the money. "How much, exactly, did I win?"

"About one hundred thousand Montacroix francs."

Shock waves reverberated through her. "What's that in American money?"

"Somewhere in the neighborhood of seventy-five thousand dollars. Actually, a bit more than that."

"That's some neighborhood. How in the world did I win so much?"

"It's not hard to do when you're playing with hundred-franc chips."

"Those were hundred-franc chips?" she repeated on a squeak. Fool that she was, she'd never thought to ask.

It was Burke's turn to look surprised. "Of course. What did you think they were?"

"I don't know. Five francs. Perhaps ten."

"In Montacroix?" Burke asked, clearly amused at her naiveté.

Sabrina thrust the colorful paper money toward him. "I can't keep this."

"Of course you can." He took the bills, unfastened the clasp of her evening purse and stuffed them inside. "If the idea of spending it on yourself is a problem, consider it my contribution to the Sonny Darling tax-relief fund. Besides," he added, "don't forget, you could have just as easily lost it all."

Her knees weakened at that idea. That had always been one of the reasons she never gambled. She'd accompanied her husband and his friends innumerable times on junkets to Atlantic City, where glitter brightened the night sky and the smoky air was static with expectation, desperation and tragedy.

Sabrina had already chosen a chancy career; that was all the risk she felt prepared to handle in one life.

Behind the casino, a man and a woman met in the shadows.

"You failed." His voice was coldly angry; his eyes resembled hard black stones.

"It wasn't my fault." She was trembling, not from the night air but from a very real fear. "He took the drugged champagne, just as you said he would, but then that American woman wanted to leave, and—"

The man's curse was quick and harsh. "You will forget everything about tonight." He reached into his pocket and took out a pair of black leather driving gloves. "You will erase from your mind the fact that you've ever met me."

"Yes. I will." Her eyes were riveted on his hands as he pulled on the gloves. "I promise. I will forget everything."

His smile flashed in the muted light with the deadly intent of a stiletto. "Yes," the man agreed as he ran one hand down her ashen cheek. "You will definitely forget everything."

His fingers trailed down her face, then her neck. Sensing his intent, the woman tried to flee, but she was too frightened to move quickly, and her attacker was too intent on his deadly mission. His black gloved fingers curled around her throat. And then he squeezed, strangling off her attempted scream for help. Her eyes grew wide and terrified, her face lost all its color. And then, she slumped to the ground.

The man stood there, eyeing her slender feminine body sprawled lifelessly on the wet dark cobblestones.

"Such a waste," he murmured. His fleeting expression of regret quickly faded, replaced with renewed determination. Then, pocketing the gloves, he disappeared into the Montacroix night.

Sabrina's mind was still spinning with thoughts of how Dixie was going to react to this unexpected windfall as they climbed into the back seat of the limousine. It had begun to rain; a steady drizzle that diffused the lights lining the street.

"I don't know how to thank you," she murmured.

"If you feel the need to thank someone, thank Lady Luck. I was just along for the ride."

His gesture was more than generous, she mused as she looked out the window. And the way he'd suggested she use her winnings to help pay off the IRS debt proved that he understood—and shared—her intense loyalty to family.

A lone man, clad in a black leather trench coat and slouch hat was walking briskly along the sidewalk. For a moment, when he glanced toward the passing limousine, Sabrina thought their eyes met. But that was impossible, she reminded herself. The windows of the limousine were heavily tinted. But that didn't prevent her from studying him as the limo paused at a red light.

His face was lean and angular, his mouth thin, his eyes sunken deep beneath protruding brows. There was something about those black eyes—something cold and foreboding—that made her shiver.

"Are you all right?" Burke asked, seeing her slight tremor. "If you're cold, I can have the driver turn up the heat."

"No." Sabrina dragged her gaze from the stranger's stony face. "A cat just walked over my grave."

"A cat?"

"It's an expression." As the light turned green and the limousine continued on its way, she shook off the strange, uneasy feeling and managed a faint smile that only wobbled slightly. "Describing a feeling…like ice up your spine."

"Ah. That I know," Burke agreed. "Was it something I said that brought on this feeling?"

"No," she said truthfully, deciding not to reveal her odd premonition. "It was probably just fatigue. And excitement from the gambling."

"Perhaps," Burke agreed. But he didn't look fully convinced. Instead, Sabrina considered, he looked genuinely concerned. She found such honest regard for her feelings even more dangerous than the fact that he was a dynamite kisser.

"You're not at all what I expected," she admitted softly.

Her scent—an erotic perfume suggestive of sex and sin—had been driving him to distraction all night. "What were you expecting?"

"I don't know," she hedged, not wanting to ruin a lovely night by admitting to her own prejudices. "It's difficult to put into words," she murmured, pretending a sudden interest in the scenery outside the window.

"Let me try," Burke suggested. "How about self-indulgent, egocentric, hedonistic. An unprincipled playboy. An oversexed libertine without conscience or scruples. Am I getting warm?"

Actually, he'd hit the nail precisely on its head. "Something like that," Sabrina mumbled, feeling increasingly uncomfortable. "Except I hadn't thought of 'libertine.'"

"Given a bit more time, I'm sure it would have occurred to you," Burke said easily. "So, with the danger of having my ego deflated even further, what do you think of me now?"

She turned toward him, surprised to find that he'd moved closer. Their faces were little more than a whisper apart.

"I think," she said slowly, "that you are a very complex man."

"A fairly accurate assessment," he agreed. "Which I suppose isn't all that surprising, coming from an equally complex woman."

"But I'm not at all complex."

He lifted a disbelieving brow. "Aren't you?"

"Of course not. Why, everyone has always said that I was the most extroverted of Sonny Darling's three daughters."

"You are the best actress," Burke corrected. "But while you are flamboyantly displaying whatever it is you want people to believe, you work overtime at keeping your true feelings hidden away, bottled up deep inside you. Which isn't always successful, because your remarkable eyes give you away."

Only with him, Sabrina could have told him, but didn't. Although she was, admittedly, an emotional person, others only saw what she wanted them to see. During the past four days, Sabrina had come to the conclusion that Burke was an intelligent man. Now she realized he was insightful as well.

"You should have told me that you inherited Katia's gift for second sight."

"I didn't. The truth is, Sabrina, that you and I are a great deal alike. We wear our public masks in much the same way my ancestors once wore those protective suits of armor you saw earlier this evening. Having both suffered feelings of abandonment as children, we've built walls around ourselves. But there is something I believe you have yet to learn."

She desperately wanted to argue. To deny everything he was saying. But she couldn't. Because it was all true.

"What's that?" she asked on a whisper.

His long fingers encircled her chin, holding her wary gaze to his. "The same walls so painstakingly erected to keep others out, also keep us in. And before long, we find ourselves in a prison of our own making."

He was so close. Too close. She put her palms against his chest, intending, if not exactly to push him away, to at least hold him at bay. "I'm not—"

"Oh, yes, you are," he insisted, cutting off her planned denial. His thumb stroked a line of sparks around her lips. "Lower the drawbridge, Sabrina." Bending his dark head, he brushed his mouth against hers, silkily, enticingly. "Let yourself feel again."

His lips were soft and warm and so exquisitely gentle that Sabrina felt herself melting into the glove-soft leather seat. Once again Burke had surprised her: she'd been expecting an instantaneous flare of dangerous passion. But instead his gentleness was shattering her defenses, crumbling her parapets, in ways that hot masculine demands never could.

Her hands clutched at his pleated white dress shirt, her head fell back in surrender, and her lips parted, inviting the sweet invasion of his tongue.

Kissing Sabrina was like falling into a sensual dream from which he never wanted to awaken. His hands tangled in her hair, scattering pins, ripping apart the artfully simplistic coiffure that had taken Ariel nearly an hour to create.

Burke sensed Sabrina's surrender, and instead of feeling victorious, he was humbled by her willingness to trust so completely. To give so openly.